Council concern over axed meetings

CHESHIRE East members have expressed concern about the number of council meetings being cancelled and asked whether this is because of staff vacancies.

More than 20 committee meetings have been cancelled since January 2022, according to the council’s own online calendar.

As reported previously, at the end of August the council had 220 job vacancies – nearly 7.5 per cent of its posts unfilled.

Poynton councillor Jos

Saunders raised the matter up at a meeting of the audit and governance committee.

She said: “How many were cancelled and were they in one particular area and, again, was it because of lack of staff resourcing?

“I would just like to dig down as to if one of the causes for these cancelled meetings, which do seem to occur on a weekly basis, is because of a lack of resources.”

Of the meetings cancelled this year six have been planning committee meetings.

The council’s planning department has been under huge pressure because of staff vacancies combined with a large backlog of applications.

Cheshire East is currently conducting a ‘deep dive’ into the planning process.

This had been touched on at an earlier meeting of the environment and communities committee.

Coun Tony Dean (Con) had said some staff had been recruited and the backlog is reducing.

He also referred to two fast-track days, which had been held.

Coun Dean said: “These are for planning applications that have been stuck in the system for longer than they should have been, months usually. And in those two days they got everybody in a room together, the arboriculturalist, the conservation officer, the planning officer, the highways people – 200 applications were completed in those two days.”

The council’s monitoring officer will be reporting back to the audit and governance committee regarding the reasons behind all the cancelled meetings.